1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a magnetic tape cassette apparatus with a drive mechanism which serves for playing magnetic tape cassettes, has a cassette loading mechanism to which there belongs a cassette tray which accommodates the magnetic tape cassette and is guided by means of laterally projecting pins in fixed vertical guideways for the purpose of lowering into a playing position and raising into an eject position, the pins reaching in addition through slots of a slide which slope relative to the vertical.
2. Art Background
A magnetic tape cassette apparatus of this kind is known from German Patent 3,241,361. Lateral pins of a cassette tray reach through L-shaped slots of a vertical housing part, each of the L-shaped slots having a vertical and a horizontal arm. Slide plates, through which the pins of the cassette tray likewise reach, have oblique slots, all of which slope in the same direction relative to the vertical arms of the L-shaped slots. If the plates having the oblique slots are moved in the draw-in or eject direction, the cassette tray first of all travels with its pins in the horizontal direction as far as the transition region between the horizontal and vertical arms of the L-shaped slots. It then descends in the vertical arms of the L-shaped slots. In this design having a cassette tray which can be displaced in the horizontal and vertical direction, the cassette tray must be guided sufficiently far above the winding spindles in order to avoid collisions. When it is a question of reducing the overall height of a drive mechanism, the compulsory horizontal movement leads inevitably to a greater overall height.
It is furthermore known, from German Patent 3,717,587, to move the cassette tray up and down by means of a lift lever, the lift lever being pivotable about an axis transversely to the draw-in and eject direction of the magnetic tape cassette. The cassette catch is guided in a slot of the lift lever, said slot extending in the draw-in and eject direction. The actuating lever engages on the cassette catch and pushes the latter in the draw-in or eject direction according to a control rod displaceable in the insertion direction.